Page 47 of The Perfect Mistake

I sigh. “Yes.”

“Is that because everyone is familiar with Contron and they know what you do?”

“I suspect so. One of the women invited me to her dinner parties. Three times in total, I think.”

Isabel chuckles lightly. “Wow. That’s persistence.”

I run my hand over the back of my neck. People have acted this way around me for almost a decade, but it got worse after I took over as CEO of one of the country’s largest companies. “Yeah.”

“Is that why you avoid these kinds of events?”

“Partly, yes.”

Mainly.

“I think one of them was coming on to you, too,” she says. Her voice is light. A bit teasing. “At a school event for your kids? I didn’t know that was a good flirting scene.”

I meet her gaze. “She was not.”

“She was,” Isabel says. “I could see it all the way from over here. Did I interrupt?”

“No. I wasn’t interested.” I grab the empty popcorn bucket from where it’s lying in Sam’s lap and tuck it off to the side.

Isabel makes a thoughtful sound and settles further back against the pillows. Her leg brushes against mine beneath the thick fabric of the comforter. It’s an accidental touch.

But it puts me further on edge.

“So,” she says. Her voice is quieter, a bit conspiratorial. Almost a whisper to not bother the others. “Did you find out what cause we’re fundraising for here tonight?”

“Not a clue,” I say. The tickets for this thing had been astronomical in price, like everything typically is at St. Regis. “Penguins lacking ice? Wigs for balding dogs?”

She leans in closer, and I catch her scent again. That warm floral fragrance which clings to her hair. I wonder if it clings to her skin, too.

“You’re such a philanthropist.”

“One tries,” I murmur. On the screen, two animated characters are fighting over something, standing precariously on the edge of a crumbling bridge.

I can empathize.

Her hand tightens around the edge of the blanket, and I glance down at the fingers. She has short nails and a tiny golden ring on her pinky.

Questions form in my mind. I dismiss them, one after the other. I shouldn’t be interested.

The other mothers are already thinking you’re fucking your nanny, I think bitterly. I don’t particularly care what they think of me. Except, the world I move in is tiny, socially speaking. It hadn’t mattered to me in a long while. Nothing has, unless they’re named Willa, Sam, or Contron.

But I don’t want them to think that of Isabel.

Something brushes against my calf, and then it stays there. Her foot? Her leg? I cross my arms over my chest and stretch out my legs. Moving them a bit to the left.

Our legs touch. All the way from the hip down to the calf, under the secrecy of the thick blanket.

Beside me, Isabel doesn’t react. Her eyes are glued to the screen like she’s never been more invested in a children’s movie. But she doesn’t pull her leg away, either.

“It’s a bit different from your show,” I say quietly.

She chuckles. “Just a tad, yeah.”

“What else do you do?” I hear myself asking. Curiosity has claimed me, and I can’t seem to escape. “When you’re not working.”

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